Assassin's Apprentice (38 page)

“No matter, my prince. I was but startled. I cannot Skill myself, except weakly and erratically. I do not know how I opened to you.”

“Verity, boy, not your prince. No one’s prince sits still in a sweaty shirt, with two days of beard. But what is this nonsense? Surely it was arranged for you to learn the Skill? I remember well how Patience’s tongue battered away my father’s resolve.” He permitted himself a weary smile.

“Galen tried to teach me, but I had not the aptitude. With bastards, I am told it is often—”

“Wait,” he growled, and in an instant was within my mind. “This is faster,” he offered, by way of apology, and then, muttering to himself, “What is this that clouds you so? Ah!” and was gone again from my mind, and all as deft and easy as Burrich taking a tick off a hound’s ear. He sat long, quiet, and so did I, wondering.

“I am strong in it, as was your father. Galen is not.”

“Then how did he become Skillmaster?” I asked quietly. I wondered if Verity was saying this only to somehow make me feel my failure less.

Verity paused as if skirting a delicate subject. “Galen was Queen Desire’s . . . pet. A favorite. The Queen emphatically suggested Galen as apprentice to Solicity. Often I think our old Skillmaster was desperate when she took him as apprentice. Solicity knew she was dying, you see. I believe she acted in haste, and toward the end, regretted her decision. And I do not think he had half the training he should have had before becoming “master.’ But there he is; he is what we have.”

Verity cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable. “I will speak as plainly as I can, boy, for I see that you know how to hold your tongue when it is wise. Galen was given that place as a plum, not because he merited it. I do not think he has ever fully grasped what it means to be the Skillmaster. Oh, he knows the position carries power, and he has not scrupled to wield it. But Solicity was more than someone who swaggered about secure in a high position. Solicity was adviser to Bounty, and a link between the King and all who Skilled for him. She made it her business to seek out and teach as many as manifested real talent and the judgment to use it well. This coterie is the first group Galen has trained since Chivalry and I were boys. And I do not find them well taught. No, they are trained, as monkeys and parrots are taught to mimic men, with no understanding of what
they do. But they are what I have.” Verity looked out the window and spoke softly. “Galen has no finesse. He is as coarse as his mother was, and just as presumptuous.” Verity paused suddenly, and his cheeks flushed as if he had said something ill considered. He resumed more quietly. “The Skill is like language, boy. I need not shout at you to let you know what I want. I can ask politely, or hint, or let you know my wish with a nod and a smile. I can Skill a man, and leave him thinking it was all his own idea to please me. But all that eludes Galen, both in the use of the Skill and the teaching of it. He uses force to batter his way in. Privation and pain are one way to lower a man’s defenses; it is the only way Galen believes in. But Solicity used guile. She would have me watch a kite, or a bit of dust floating in a sunbeam, focusing on it as if there were nothing else in the world. And suddenly there she would be, inside my mind with me, smiling and praising me. She taught me that being open was simply not being closed. And going into another’s mind is mostly done by being willing to go outside of your own. Do you see, boy?”

“Somewhat,” I hedged.

“Somewhat.” He sighed. “I could teach you to Skill, had I but the time. I do not. But tell me this—were your lessons going well, before he tested you?”

“No. I never had any aptitude . . . wait! That’s not true! What am I saying, what have I been thinking?” Though I was sitting, I swayed suddenly, my head bounding off the arm of Verity’s
chair. He reached out a hand and steadied me.

“I was too swift, I suppose. Steady now, boy. Someone had misted you. Befuddled you, much as I do Red-Ship navigators and steersmen. Convince them they’ve taken a sighting already and their course is true when really they are steering into a cross current. Convince them they’ve passed a point they haven’t sighted yet. Someone convinced you that you could not Skill.”

“Galen.” I spoke with certainty. I almost knew the moment. He had slammed into me that afternoon, and from that time nothing had been the same. I had been living in a fog, all those months. . . .

“Probably. Though if you Skilled into him at all, I’m sure you’ve seen what Chivalry did to him. He hated your father with a passion, prior to Chiv turning him into a lapdog. We felt badly about it. We’d have undone it, if we could have figured out how to do it, and escape Solicity’s detection. But Chiv was strong with the Skill, and we were all but boys then, and Chiv was angry when he did it. Over something Galen had done to me, ironically. Even when Chivalry was not angry, being Skilled by him was like being trampled by a horse. Or ducked in a fast-flowing river, more like. He’d get in a hurry, and barge into you and dump his information and flee.” He paused again and reached to uncover a dish of soup on his tray. “I guess I’ve always assumed you knew all this. Though I’m damned if there’s any way you could have. Who would have told you?”

I seized on one piece of information. “You could teach me to Skill?”

“If I had time. A great deal of time. You’re a lot like
Chiv and I were, when we learned. Erratic. Strong, but with no idea how to bring that strength to bear. And Galen has . . . well, scarred you, I suppose. You’ve walls I can’t begin to penetrate, and I am strong. You’d have to learn to drop them. That’s a hard thing. But I could teach you, yes. If you and I had a year, and nothing else to do.” He pushed the soup aside. “But we don’t.”

My hopes crashed again. This second wave of disappointment engulfed me, grinding me against stones of frustration. My memories all reordered themselves, and in a surge of anger, I knew all that had been done to me. Were it not for Smithy, I’d have dashed my life out at the base of the tower that night. Galen had tried to kill me, just as surely as if he’d had a knife. No one would even have known of how he’d beaten me, save his loyal coterie. And while he’d failed at that, he had taken from me the chance to learn Skilling. He’d crippled me, and I would . . . I leaped to my feet, furious.

“Whoa. Be slow and careful. You have a grievance, but we cannot have discord within the keep itself right now. Carry it with you until you can settle it quietly, for the King’s sake.” I bowed my head to the wisdom of his counsel. He lifted the cover from a small roast fowl, dropped it again. “Why would you want to learn this Skill anyway? It’s a miserable thing. No fit occupation for a man.”

“To help you,” I said without thinking, and then found it true. Once it would have been to prove myself a true and fit son to Chivalry, to impress Burrich or Chade, to increase my
standing in the keep. Now, after watching what Verity did, day after day, with no praise or acknowledgment from his subjects, I found I only wanted to help him.

“To help me,” he repeated. The storm winds were slackening. With exhausted resignation, he lifted his eyes to the window. “Take the food away, boy. I’ve no time for it now.”

“But you need strength,” I protested. Guiltily, I knew he had taken time with me that he should have taken for food and sleep.

“I know. But I have no time. Eating takes energy. Odd to realize that. I have none extra to give to that just now.” His eyes were questing afar now, staring through the sheeting rain that was just beginning to slacken.

“I’d give you my strength, Verity. If I could.”

He looked at me oddly. “Are you sure? Very sure?”

I could not understand the intensity of his question, but I knew the answer. “Of course I would.” And more quietly: “I am a king’s man.”

“And of my own blood,” he affirmed. He sighed. For a moment he looked sickened. He looked again at the food, and again out the window. “There is just time,” he whispered. “And it might be enough. Damnation to you, Father. Must you always win? Come here, then, boy.”

There was an intensity to his words that frightened me, but I obeyed. When I stood by his chair, he reached out a hand. He placed it on my shoulder, as if he needed assistance to rise.

I looked up at him from the floor. There was a pillow under my head, and the blanket I had brought up earlier had been tossed over me. Verity stood, leaning out the window. He was shaking
with effort, and the Skill he exerted was like battering waves I could almost feel. “Onto the rocks,” he said with deep satisfaction, and whirled from the window. He grinned at me, an old fierce grin, that faded slowly as he looked down on me.

“Like a calf to the slaughter,” he said ruefully. “I should have known that you didn’t know what you were talking about.”

“What happened to me?” I managed to ask. My teeth chattered against each other, and my whole body shook as with a chill. I felt I would rattle my bones out of their joints.

“You offered me your strength. I took it.” He poured a cup of the tea, then knelt to hold it to my mouth. “Go slowly. I was in a hurry. Did I say earlier that Chivalry was a bull with his Skill? What must I say about myself then?”

He had his old bluff heartiness and good nature back. This was a Verity I had not seen for months. I managed a mouthful of the tea and felt the elfbark sting my mouth and throat. My shivering eased. Verity took a casual gulp from the mug.

“In the old days,” he said conversationally, “a king would draw on his coterie. Half a dozen men or more, and all in tune with one another, able to pool strength and offer it as needed. That was their true purpose. To provide strength to their king, or to their own key man. I don’t think Galen quite grasps that. His coterie is a thing he has fashioned. They are like horses and bullocks and donkeys, all harnessed together. Not a true coterie at all. They lack the singleness of mind.”

“You drew strength from me?”

“Yes. Believe me, boy, I would not have, except that I had
a sudden need, and I thought you knew what you offered. You yourself named yourself as a king’s man, the old term. And as close as we are in blood, I knew I could tap you.” He set the mug down on the tray with a thump. Disgust deepened his voice. “Shrewd. He sets things in motion, wheels turning, pendulums swaying. It is no accident you are the one to bring me my meals, boy. He was making you available to me.” He took a swift turn about the room, then stopped, standing over me. “It will not happen again.”

“It was not so bad,” I said faintly.

“No? Why don’t you try to stand, then? Or even sit up? You’re just one boy, alone, not a coterie. Had I not realized your ignorance and drawn back, I could have killed you. Your heart and breath would just have stopped. I’ll not drain you like this, not for anyone. Here.” He stooped, and without effort, lifted me and placed me in his chair. “Sit here a bit. And eat. I don’t need it now. And when you are better, go to Shrewd for me. Say that I say you are a distraction. I wish a kitchen boy to bring my meals, from now on.”

“Verity,” I began.

“No,” he corrected me. “Say “my prince.’ For in this, I am your prince, and I will not be questioned on it. Now eat.”

I bowed my head, miserable, but I did eat, and the elfbark in the tea worked to revive me faster than I had expected. Soon I could stand, to stack the dishes on the tray and then to carry them to the door. I felt defeated. I lifted the latch.

“FitzChivalry Farseer.”

I halted, frozen by the words. I turned slowly.

“It’s your name, boy. I wrote it myself, in the military log, on the day you were brought to me. Another thing I had thought you knew. Stop thinking of yourself as the bastard, FitzChivalry Farseer. And be sure that you see Shrewd today.”

“Good-bye,” I said quietly, but he was already staring out the window again.

And so high summer found us all. Chade at his tablets, Verity at his window, Regal courting a princess for his brother, and I, quietly killing for my king. The Inland and Coastal Dukes took sides at the council tables, hissing and spitting at one another like cats over fish. And atop it all was Shrewd, keeping each piece of web as taut as any spider, and alert to the least thrumming of a line. The Red-Ships struck at us, like ratfish on beefbait, tearing away bits of our folk and Forging them. And the Forged folk became a torment to the land, beggars or predators or burden to their families. Folk feared to fish, to trade, or to farm the river-mouth plains by the sea. And yet the taxes must be raised, to feed the soldiers and the watchers who seemed unable to defend the land despite their growing numbers. Shrewd had grudgingly released me from my service to Verity. My king had not called for me in over a month when one morning I was abruptly summoned to breakfast.

“It’s a poor time to wed,” Verity objected. I looked at the sallow, fleshless man who shared the King’s breakfast table and wondered if this was the bluff, hearty prince from my childhood. He had worsened so much in just a month. He toyed with a bit of bread, set it down again. The outdoors had gone from his cheeks
and eyes; his hair was dull, his musculature slack. The whites of his eyes were yellowed. Burrich would have wormed him if he’d been a hound.

Unasked, I said, “I hunted with Leon two days ago. He took a rabbit for me.”

Verity turned to me, a ghost of his old smile playing on his face. “You took my wolfhound for rabbits?”

“He enjoyed it. He misses you, though. He brought me the rabbit, and I praised him, but it didn’t seem to satisfy him.” I couldn’t tell him how the hound had looked at me,
not for you
as plain in his eyes as in his bearing.

Verity picked up his glass. His hand quivered ever so slightly. “I am glad he gets out with you, boy. It’s better than—”

“The wedding,” Shrewd cut in, “will hearten the people. I am getting old, Verity, and the times are troubled. The people see no end to their troubles, and I do not dare promise them solutions we do not have. The Outislanders are right, Verity. We are not the warriors who once settled here. We have become a settled people. And a settled people can be threatened in ways that nomads and rovers have no care for. And we can be destroyed in those same ways. When settled people look for security, they look for continuity.”